MAYDAY PARKER, THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER-GIRL Appreciation

[Mister Mets]

Sorry, but apparently well over 100 issues of storyline is "niche", while characters like Spider-Gwen who have had, at best, a fifth of that, are already bigger than those 100+ issues ever were. The time advantage of USM? Irrelevant, because "niche". What does "niche" mean? I don't know, I'm just saying it so you don't think she's important. Why? Um… look, just remember that she's "niche", okay? Mayday's not important because I said she isn't, and I don't have to explain anything more than that.

Niche is unrelated to the length of time a series lasted. Generally it simply means that something is understood to be a subset of a larger market. Something can appeal to a niche audience for a long period of time, and people can make careers at it as well. For example, Model Railroader is a niche product but it's been around since 1934.

Niche also doesn't mean that a work of art is flawed. A TV series made for a niche audience can still be awesome, as fellow fans of Community and Firefly can attest.

[Scott Taylor]

It can be hard to read sarcasm on webposts, but I think that was it. Or perhaps he meant Nietzche instead of niche, and was making a philosophical statement. Never know with kids these days and their wacky spelling ways.

[Phantom Roxas]

Niche is unrelated to the length of time a series lasted. Generally it simply means that something is understood to be a subset of a larger market. Something can appeal to a niche audience for a long period of time, and people can make careers at it as well. For example, Model Railroader is a niche product but it's been around since 1934.

Niche also doesn't mean that a work of art is flawed. A TV series made for a niche audience can still be awesome, as fellow fans of Community and Firefly can attest.

It means that if you're paraphrasing the definition from Wikipedia that Google provides you[b][/i] by searching "niche audience meaning". What does "niche" mean in the context of Spider-Girl? I see it used to attribute a certain level of insignificance to the subset of her fanbase. Sure, it's part of a larger part, the Spider-Man fandom. But it's a part that is somehow easily dismissed. While I don't think "niche" means that a work of art is flawed, it's applied to Mayday as if it say that it is. I've watched only a couple episodes of Firefly, but I can believe it deserves its following, and I like Community, though I'm not quite sure that six seasons (but no movie) still means it's only niche. If anything, that "larger part of a subset" reasoning is rather cheap. By folding something like Community under the label of "niche", it reduces the audience it had, and says that Community was secondary to a larger market. Likewise, "niche" only comes up in Spider-Girl to qualify its audience.

Length is absolutely related to something being niche. I at least know the endurance of Browncoats is associated with how short Firefly is. That, in spite of the show's relatively short lifespan, it still has a continuing fanbase. The length of a "niche" media is important because of that length was possible in spite of the supposedly limited appeal. So the 100+ issues of Spider-Girl? That's important, because that shows she's more capable of headlining a series than an otherwise "niche" character could. She had more than a hundred issues not because she's popular with a particular subset of the Spider-Man market. She's popular in her own right, simple as that.

[Mister Mets]

It means that if you're paraphrasing the definition from Wikipedia that Google provides you[b][/i] by searching "niche audience meaning". What does "niche" mean in the context of Spider-Girl? I see it used to attribute a certain level of insignificance to the subset of her fanbase. Sure, it's part of a larger part, the Spider-Man fandom. But it's a part that is somehow easily dismissed. While I don't think "niche" means that a work of art is flawed, it's applied to Mayday as if it say that it is. I've watched only a couple episodes of Firefly, but I can believe it deserves its following, and I like Community, though I'm not quite sure that six seasons (but no movie) still means it's only niche. If anything, that "larger part of a subset" reasoning is rather cheap. By folding something like Community under the label of "niche", it reduces the audience it had, and says that Community was secondary to a larger market. Likewise, "niche" only comes up in Spider-Girl to qualify its audience.

Length is absolutely related to something being niche. I at least know the endurance of Browncoats is associated with how short Firefly is. That, in spite of the show's relatively short lifespan, it still has a continuing fanbase. The length of a "niche" media is important because of that length was possible in spite of the supposedly limited appeal. So the 100+ issues of Spider-Girl? That's important, because that shows she's more capable of headlining a series than an otherwise "niche" character could. She had more than a hundred issues not because she's popular with a particular subset of the Spider-Man market. She's popular in her own right, simple as that.

In the context of Spider-Girl, niche means that the audience was a small subset of Spider-Man fans.

It's meant to be an objective term rather than a measure of quality.

[Sardorim]

She isn't on a single cover (despite Lady Spider and Uncle Ben Spider-Man being on THREE) because:

Marvel don’t want to remind you too much that there was a Spider Baby

Marvel don’t want to remind you too much about the Spider Marriage

Marvel don’t want to remind you too much of a Spider-Girl who isn’t Anya

Marvel don’t have much respect to Tom DeFalco, the former Editor-in-Chief who’s leadership is often scapegoated for Marvel’s dire problems in the 1990s and early 2000s

Marvel don’t like Mayday

All of this despite the fact that a series about AU Spider-People in an era when Marvel have made a lot of noise about diversity would mean that putting the most popular/successful female AU Spider person who's the longest running solo female marvel character would make MORE financial sense.

Mayday isn't Spider-Girl so no issue there.

There's no excuse not to have her on the cover since she can help sell the book. Course making the book initially about Gwen and Gwen only was bad as is making Electro the first arc villain...

And Anya getting like no lines for the first few issues...

It's like Marvel wants Web Warriors to fail.

[Phantom Roxas]

In the context of Spider-Girl, niche means that the audience was a small subset of Spider-Man fans.

It's meant to be an objective term rather than a measure of quality.

"Small". See, that's the issue I'm getting at. It's not "objective", because it's still your opinion. You think Mayday's doesn't have a big fanbase - or rather, you don't want her to have a fanbase bigger than a certain amount - so you use "niche" to reduce her audience, make that audience smaller than the level you've deemed problematic for whatever reason. It's not "objective", because it's still a measure of quality - your measurement. You just found a convenient word to treat your opinion as if it were fact. "Objective", oddly enough, is typically used by people who are anything but that. It's people who want their opinion to seem like it has a certain authority behind it, and they can shut down dissenting opinions by just claiming that the other side has an opinion at all, and are therefore being irrational, but the person claiming "objectivity" doesn't have to concede to any flaws in their argument, because by saying they're "objective", they don't actually commit to an opinion. They can just say that they're stating facts so they don't have to be held accountable for having an opinion people would disagree with. If the subset was so "small", then how could the book have possibly lasted as long as it did? That's the counterpoint I brought up, which you ignored and focused solely on the first two sentences of my post, which is the perfect example of dissenting opinions versus the illusion of objectivity.

Mayday isn't Spider-Girl so no issue there.

There's no excuse not to have her on the cover since she can help sell the book. Course making the book initially about Gwen and Gwen only was bad as is making Electro the first arc villain...

And Anya getting like no lines for the first few issues...

It's like Marvel wants Web Warriors to fail.

Anya wasn't Spider-Girl either. They cancelled Mayday's book so they can give her name to Anya to avoid confusion. I don't think they want Web Warriors to fail, but that's mostly because I just see it as another opportunity to put Gwen out there. But it fell to 80th place in its second issue, and while Black Knight is being cancelled for selling far worse than that, I could see it being that Web Warriors might fall in the rankings compared to other Marvel books. So, maybe not like Marvel wants it to fail. But it sure ended up being poorly handled. So much for continuing the story of Spider-Verse.

[Divine Spark]

So a boy would be unique, and Miles is close - except being an introvert is apparently a bad thing because it negates that - but Mayday is nothing more than a genderbent clone of her father as if she were Ultimate Jessica Drew, and therefore a Mary Sue? Hmm… has anyone else been paying attention to the online collective facepalm at Max Landis calling Rey from Star Wars a Mary Sue?



The Anya reason is outdated, but the point is that it was there at all, in which case I agree. Mayday was replaced for Anya who was replaced for Spider-Gwen. I'm not sure how much of the lack of respect for Tom DeFalco factors into this, so the biggest reason for me is simply that they don't want to remind people about the marriage. After One More Day, Mayday was cited as a way to pacify the people who Quesada knew would be angered by One More Day. And now she's gone, and the attitude has shifted towards "You need to get over One More Day!", even though the people who made One More Day and the fans who "support" it (By which I mean they're just going out of their way to avoid having to say that they just hate Mary Jane) had their own problems they couldn't get over after twenty years.

More like she was replaced for Silk.

[Phantom Roxas]

More like she was replaced for Silk.

A bit of both. Silk was just thrown in to have another love interest to make up for Carlie being gone, and Spider-Verse sidelined Mayday and Anya to make way for Cindy and Gwen.

[Mister Mets]

More like she was replaced for Silk.

I don't think the new characters were meant to all be replacements.

Silk was created because it would be an interesting consequence of Original Sin. Spider-Gwen was created because it fit Spider-Verse. The characters got spinoffs because the first appearances sold well, and sold out.

Anya did fit a similar niche with Mayday, and was promoted as a lead from the start, but I'm not sure replacement is the right word even there. Spider-Girl's sales stuggles had little to do with Anya, and both books coexisted for a while.

[Londo Bellian]

Poor Mayday though, spoilers:

lost in the multiverse with Spider-UK

end of spoilers as of Web-Warriors #5. Convenient to dispose of the one solid reminder that once long ago the Pete-MJ Spider-marriage WORKED. To quote Kid!Loki, "the House ALWAYS wins".

[Phantom Roxas]

Silk was created because it would be an interesting consequence of Original Sin.

Sort of. Silk was created because Slott was afraid that anyone could reveal something about Spider-Man in Original Sin that he wouldn't like, so he made up Silk as a preemptive countermeasure against anyone else. So she wasn't a replacement for Anya. She was a placeholder to deny anyone else the chance to tell a story.

Spider-Gwen was created because it fit Spider-Verse. The characters got spinoffs because the first appearances sold well, and sold out.

That's true for Spider-Gwen. However, Silk's first appearances were in issues of Amazing Spider-Man, a book that will already sell well. The book selling out was not simply due to Silk, so she did not have the same progression as Gwen.

Anya did fit a similar niche with Mayday, and was promoted as a lead from the start, but I'm not sure replacement is the right word even there. Spider-Girl's sales stuggles had little to do with Anya, and both books coexisted for a while.

Mayday's book overcame its sales struggle. Her book was only cancelled for good once Anya was promoted as a part of Big Time, and she was Araña until then. Mayday's book was cancelled so the Spider-Girl mantle could be given to Anya. Even if Anya wasn't created as a replacement for Anya, she absolutely became one.

[Divine Spark]

A bit of both. Silk was just thrown in to have another love interest to make up for Carlie being gone, and Spider-Verse sidelined Mayday and Anya to make way for Cindy and Gwen.

At least it wasn't as bad as the way they sidelined Julia and Mattie in Grim Hunt.

Even if Anya wasn't created as a replacement for Anya, she absolutely became one.

Bit of a typo there.

[Phantom Roxas]

I meant Anya wasn't created as a replacement for Mayday. Whoops.

Though Julia and Mattie getting sidelined only added to that. Amazing how three different characters had to be shuffled around just for Anya to stand out.

[Divine Spark]

I meant Anya wasn't created as a replacement for Mayday. Whoops.

Though Julia and Mattie getting sidelined only added to that. Amazing how three different characters had to be shuffled around just for Anya to stand out.

I found it amazing that anyone thought that would work in Anya's favor. Along with the cancellation of Mayday's series, there was suppose to be a sequel to The Loners mini-series featuring Mattie making a return since she was a main character in that. Way to give a middle finger to the people who enjoyed that series. To add insult to injury lets never mention her again not even by her family, so people won't be reminded too much that there was another Spider-Girl that had a brother-sister relationship with Peter and who was mentored by Jessica Drew that wasn't Anya. Julia is often called the best Spider-Woman, lets erase her personality and implant Madame Webb's annoying one so Anya can get her iconic costume. Putting a woman in the refrigerator and the character assassination of another woman sure made Anya stand out in a bad way. Her first series faded within a year, so it shouldn't have been surprising that the second sold far worse.

Another problem is that Anya never appeared in the main Spider-books before Grim Hunt. I remember a long-time Spidey reader saying he didn't who Anya was when she showed up in that story. They didn't give Spider-fans a reason to be invested in her.

And you can clearly tell that it was all Quesada's doing. Grim Hunt was his idea and he was the one that axed Mayday. Once he left as EIC and Spider-Girl was cancelled Anya had very little appearances before Spiderverse.

[Phantom Roxas]

It shows how petty the grudges against the marriage are that, when trying to erase Mayday from the public eye, two other characters had to get caught in the crossfire just to make Anya into Mayday's replacement.